timsabre

I've had lots of fun trying to interface with Casambi (their entire operation seems to be run by 2 people in Finland) but it doesn't sound like the issue here is with the Casambi side of it.

It's using Casambi which is a wifi protocol a bit like what Google Alexa does. The DMX is coming from a Casambi to DMX gateway unit. But wifi issues would not cause a loss of DMX to individual fixtures as is being described.

Hi Caleb, sounds like you are doing everything right and something weird is happening. I would advise you phone up Chamsys support, they are very helpful.

It's always surprising to me that even the "super energy efficient" LEDs convert about 60% of the input energy into heat which has to be removed from the LED to keep it working. This simply cannot be done in an object the size of a halogen lamp, so anything retro-fit has to be much bigger with built in fans or other method of removing the heat to outside the fixture.

Also bear in mind, LED fixtures would only use their rated power with all colour emitters on full, which rarely happens in normal use. For a simple RGB par can showing full red, the power usage would be roughly a third of the rated power (plus a small amount of static power draw as Don says). So a realistic calculation for LED fixture power draw would use a figure somewhat less than the rated power.

David is right about the auto addressing thing. Ignore my comment about power.

I have felt all along that you have a stray voltage problem on the DMX - which wiring that green wire to mains earth could well be causing, in conjunction with another fault, probably a bad DMX GND connection or bad earth or something. Are all the fittings wired like that? I would expect if you just cut off the green wires it'll work properly. They are maybe to power inline splitters or a remote controller or something?

Switch Electronics is a legit business, they're just down the road from me. Started off as a guy buying surplus switches and selling them on ebay.

There are so many floodlight fixtures installed out there that use the linear halogen lamps though, I think there will be significant demand for a long time yet. @Yorkie, those dimmable floods look interesting, report back if you try them. You will probably find that dimming is a bit rubbish with Triac dimmers, but acceptable with Trailing Edge/Mosfet dimmers, at least that is what I am finding with most "dimmable" fixtures.

I design LED stuff for a living and R7 LED lamps are never going to be very good, it's just not possible in the shape of the lamp - you can't get enough heatsinking into it to use the high powered LED's that you'd need to get a decent brightness. The ETC light engines are in a different league as there's much more opportunity for LED placement and heat management in the S4 fixtures it is designed to be used with.

All the linear halogen LED replacement lamps are rubbish though. The light output is a fraction of what you get from the halogen tube, and they won't dim sensibly either.

This post was about 500W halogen floods, R7s lamps for these are not so specialised as T class theatrical lamps and are still widely available. Presumably there will come a day when they aren't, but personally I think that day is a way off. As others have said, there are about a million different types of LED flood out there but none of them are a good dimmable LED replacement for 500W halogen floods. You don't say how much headroom you have, though I would assume being a village hall it isn't much. Something like this (takes permanent undimmed power and DMX) might be a valid replacement. https://www.bax-shop.co.uk/led-bar/eurolite-led-cbb-2-cob-ww-bar

Many higher model dslrs have good audio facilities now, with interfaces for balanced mic and level controls.

No, you cannot get wireless headphones over wifi with X32 (or any of the Behringer mixers). If they have wireless headphones they must be using a separate system for that. I would be looking at one of the ENG wireless mic systems which are designed for exactly this. The original linked device might work, although it is designed for a mic input it says "Max input signal 500mV" which is line level so it should be OK. It will (obviously) be mono. Thomann's cheap IEM system should be ok for this task https://www.thomann.de/gb/the_t.bone_iem_75.htm

For your replacement, buy a laser source projector, they are a bit more costly initially but much less trouble in a village hall type setting. I have used "JustProjectors" https://www.projectors.co.uk/repair once before, but be warned that all projector repair seems to be really expensive. Have you checked that all panels / access hatches have been correctly refitted as projectors often have lockout switches on the panels. Also try refitting the old lamp?

It does not have move while dark, according to the manual. But it doesn't have DMX Reset command either, so I am not sure what he means by "if a reset is performed". It does have blackout on DMX loss which is the default setting, but he said the pan/tilt continues to work while it is stuck in blackout, so that doesn't sound like it.

So are you saying that there's no light output, but then the entire fixture works normally after you send a DMX reset command, until you set the LEDs to blackout, at which point the LEDs no longer work again?

Not familiar with this unit but is there a menu option to restore factory default settings? Sounds possibly like some weird option setting.

Well that would certainly do it... Get that voltage metered to earth then work out which fixture it's coming from.

I think the "Return" terminal is just a way of saying DMX ground. I would check the continuity on the hot, cold and ground legs from the controller all the way through the 5 fixtures (using a long bit of wire to get back from the far end). Then I would check for stray voltages on the DMX hot, cold and ground relative to mains earth when the first 2 fixtures are connected, then when 3-5 are connected. I suspect you will find that there is some mixup in the wiring, possibly more than one fault, on the way through. The fact that fixtures 3-5 don't work when directly connected make it sound like some sort of grounding fault. You don't say what cabling lengths are involved but (although not the best plan) the HO7 cable shouldn't be an issue.

The black ones I've seen (as with black XLRs) are black anodized rather than painted, this is electrically conducting still.

Presume you've tried calling the folks at showmagic who are usually very helpful. Not sure what you mean by "artnet is not seeing the network card". Do you mean the artnet settings in showmagic are not available? Or do you mean the enttec ode interface isn't receiving the artnet? If the 2nd, download an Artnet test program onto another computer and check what's coming out of showmagic. Do you have a switch./hub in between the laptop and the ODE?

Yes, I would add that the requirement for stp / screened ethercons was not originally in the x32 instructions or printed on the desk.

We have had loads of interference troubles using utp, and also stp where the metal screen of the ethercons wasn't continuous - dropouts and clicks/bangs on the audio. You may get away with utp or you may not.

Is there an induction loop in the venue? I have seen a similar thing where a DMX system with a broken wire (I think Data+ was connected but not Data-) worked most of the time but audio on the induction loop would make it fail.